Understanding the Origin of the Jiva

The breakthrough for me came when I stoped thinking in terms of “origins” – “inceptions” and so on. Also, go back to the very basic beginnings and make sure you understand the ramifications of statements like “na jayate kadācit” or “na tvevāham jātu”

Another breakthough for me was carefully studying Tattva Sandarbha and hearing Śrī Jīva Goswāmī explain Vyāsa’s samādhī and explicitly use the phrase “anādi bhagavad ajñāna” – so then I knew I had to stop trying to figure out the situation as if it was a “choice” between two known options.

Once I had these two things – understanding that I didn’t have an origin point any different from my current origin/root, and understanding that I never know Bhagavān directly… then it is very simple.

Also another important breakthrough for me was to allow non-intellectual reasons to have their place. After all, reality is acintya. (supra-intellectual). Not everything has an intellectual rationale. In fact, all the really “original,” deep, primary stuff about existence is more based on “kāma” than buddhi (“so kāmayata, bahu syām prajāyata”). Desires are not rational but they do make sense.

Consciousness wants to enjoy what it can experience, so it always manifests things to experience. This is the basic prakṛti/puruṣa paradigm. There is never puruṣa without prakṛti and never prakṛti without puruṣa. You can’t even define one without the other. So Krishna and the individual conscious entities are always co-existant. It makes sense.

And what consciousness wants to experience is something “beautiful.” Which is why bhakti is fundamental to the essential nature of reality. It’s the relationship between the puruṣa (Krishna) and prakṛti (us). Beauty involves variety, and thats why there are so many varieties of prakṛti (us), and that’s why there are some unexpected varieties, such as prakṛti that wants to be puruṣa (us in the material world).

Another big breakthrough for me to understand this whole thing was to learn the different sanskrit terms for “eternal”. Especially when I learned the difference between anādi (beginningless) and ananta (endless) – and heard how Jīva Goswāmī explained their relevance to this topic – everything made sense. Our bhagavad-ajñāna (lack of experience of Bhagavān) is anādi (beginningless) but not ananta (endless) if we dont want it to be. And if we do want it to be, bhagavān’s māya provides us the opportunity to fulfill our desires so long as we cooperate with others who want to do the same.

To me it all makes sense, so maybe if you sit with these concepts for a few months it will also make sense to you.